Preview: The Evil Within Presentation from Quakecon 2013

One of the appointments I was not able to get scheduled was one for an exclusive hands on demo of The Evil Within. This game was first announced at E3 about a month ago for the PS3, Xbox 360, PS4, Xbox One, and PC, and will come out in 2014. Today, they had a presentation open for anyone to see the game for the first time in action.

Not being a fan of the survival horror along the same lines as Silent Hill this game is not on my “watch list”. I have started playing through The Last of Us to try to break this “curse” I have for not wanting to play “horror” games. So, I went in with an open mind, and below are my thoughts as well as some screenshots from the demo that was shown today. The Evil Within is being developed by Japanese studio Tango Gameworks, and is being published by Bethesda. The director of this game is Shinji Mikami who is the mastermind behind the Resident Evil series, most notably 4.

The demo started out with you playing as Detective Sebastian Castellanos arriving at the scene of a mass murder that has taken place at Beacon Mental Hospital. Right off the bat, the graphics, and facial detail were amazing. The rain bouncing off his trench coat as he walked up to the asylum were beautiful. You walk up with your partner, and what looks like to be some “assistant” but not entirely sure as she was left at the front door while they went in. There are many police cars while you are walking up that are empty. Right when you walk in you can tell you are not going to like this game if you do not like blood. There is dead bodies all over the place, blood smeared all over the floor. The victims mostly look to be all patients there hanging like they were in a meat locker. When you walk into the front office, you watch a security video of three officers firing at what looks like to be nothing. Then, you see an image of a woman teleport to each cop, and slit their throats. Then you see her up close, and she disappears, and reappears right behind you, and the screen goes black. When you wake you are hanging upside down just like the victims you saw in the beginning with cut marks on your hand all the way up your arm. You then see a “abnormal” monster with a chainsaw for an arm walking back, and forth between the other bodies slicing them up.

You break free, and must sneak around the “butcher” to get the keys to escape. This is where I thought of “The Last of Us” trying to sneak around without making any sound. After you get the key, and make it into the next room you accidentally set off an alarm that sends the “butcher” after you. While you are running, he is able to cut you pretty bad on your calf so in game you are limping. You make it the elevator just before he comes down on you with the chainsaw, and are you “safe”.

The second part of the demo was to show some of the combat that will be in the game. You will have the ability to set traps. Also, even if you shoot a monster in the head they might play dead. A quick fix to this to make sure they are, you can set them on fire. The game relies on limited resources, and hiding. You can hide in lockers, under beds to make sure you save your bullets for when they will matter. As you can tell there is unimaginable creatures that you will come in contact with in this game that will mess with your mind.

Will I play this game right when it comes out? Right now the answer is no, but by the time I finish the Last of Us, and other games in this genre maybe my decision will change. But for now, I will have to sleep with my “blankie” at night to make sure I don’t have nightmares.